Upon a highrise tower of ebony and gold, a man with white hair stood, his golden eyes staring down at the metropolis below him that was the crown jewel of the Selfian Empire.

Jack Knight, soon to be Jack Cordelica folded his hands, leaning over the balcony with a pensive expression.

Today he would be getting married, a tense and stressful day for anyone. But Jack also had the additional benefit of being crowned as King of a nation that hated his kind.

Eyes to the bright blue sky, Jack closed them, taking a moment to breath in the crisp air that was different from the plains he called home. So different from the stalactite underground of his childhood.

Life… it had become so different. The man he was, now a contrast to the boy that left that underground cyber hellscape so many years ago.

Jack spun, facing his companion of old, the spectral woman with white wings and gold hair who served as his literal heart.

Sahaqiel smiled at Jack, the archangel lounging on the queen sized bed as a smol pale woman in armor lay in her lap munching on candy.

Ruby, Jack's guardian. And to the far corner of the room, perhaps the only one uninterested in the entire affair, Lilith.

Swath in shadows, the fallen specter stood in darkness, the only thing visible from her being crimson eyes and the occasional black feather that fell from her body and faded into the ether.

A knock at the door, a woman with silky brown hair entering in with her long red dress swaying from side to side.

“Ada,” Jack smiled, eyeing the love of his life as the three other women, invisible to the mortal world vanished.

“Tanji,” Ada replied, her soft smile lifting a heavy weight off of Jack's heart. “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I can be.” Jack sighed before he moved to embrace the lithe woman.

“Are you nervous?”

“Me? Naahh.”

“Well, remember that one time in the clinic closet?” Ada smirked, walking her fingers up Jack's chest, her hazel eyes fixed on his golden gaze.

“If I recall, you were the one that tackled me into that closet.” Jack said, brushing the woman's hair over her ear before locking lips with the nomad.

“Ahem.”

The pair jolted, standing at the entrance of the bedroom was a short red-haired woman, her green eyes a contrast to the matching red dress she wore to Ada.

“If you don't hurry up, we'll be late,” Leona said, her tomboyish voice one of disapproval. “And if you're gonna do that, at least close the door and wait till after the wedding!”

“Yes mom,” Jack replied, causing the woman to roll her eyes.

“Don't think I won't tan your behind,” Leona hissed before walking in and tidying the blue military uniform Jack wore. She eyed his wrists, making sure the runic tattoos were covered by his sleeves and white gloves. “Now come on.”

Jack followed the woman out, Ada giggling in the process.

“So where's Celeste?” Jack asked, a hint of worry in his voice as he asked about his daughter.

“She's with your cousin Jin,” Leona reported, walking briskly down the velvety red hall flanked by suits of armor and noticing Jack's jaw clenching repeatedly. “Enjoying her new dress. Relax, do you think I would give her to someone I don't trust?”

“No, it's not that I don't doubt she's in good hands. I just worry is all,” Jack replied as the trio came before a large ornate double door of expensive oak.

“You're so cute when you worry.” Ada replied, poking Jack on the cheek.

“Well, here we are. I'll see you two at the afterparty I guess,” Jack sighed.

“Reception, Jack,” Leona corrected.

“What?”

“Wedding reception, not party,” Leona explained before grabbing Ada’s wrist and taking her away, the latter planting a kiss on Jack's face before going.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Jack watched the pair race off, leaving him alone to stew in his thoughts.

“You got this Jack!” Sahaqiel cheered. “It's just marriage!”

Well. Physically alone.

“Thanks.”

Jack caught his breath, clenching both fists before he reached out to the knob of the golden door.

“Hello Jack darling,” Duchess Bell said, facing Jack with another set of doors behind her. “Are you ready for me to walk you down the aisle?”

She stood somehow at six foot two, a green-haired woman with matching emerald eyes stuffed into a red gown fitted with gold jewels and green sashes.

“Yeah. Let's get this over with. How's Celeste?” Jack sighed, tugging at his military dress uniform that bore the rank of Major.

“Playing with her favorite uncle Jin. Don't worry, she's in good hands,” Duchess Bell assured, offering her soft hand out to Jack. “Now come along, fix your posture darling, we've got a room full of politicians to make angry and scam.”

“Right we do.” Jack said, taking the woman's painted fingers as the double doors opened to orchestral music.

Unlike in the Corporate Alliance or nomadic weddings, in the Empire, sons were led down the aisle by their mother. Or, in lieu of that, a mother-figure.

As the head of his deceased mother's noble house, Duchess Bell just so happened to be the nearest thing Jack had.

Entering into the chamber, Jack's pristine black boots stepped in time with Duchess Bell’s red heels, his gaze forward as hundreds of eyes belonging to strangers he'd never met descended on him.

Murmurs could be heard. A hundred mouths all speaking about Jack, their whispers clear as day to his awakened senses.

“Who is that guy?”

“This is the man the Queen chose?”

“Rumors are he's related to the Blood Rose.”

“Preposterousness!”

“Hmm. I admit he has exemplary features but what's with his white hair?”

“I thought this was a scion of House Bell, not Light?”

“Maybe another wayward like the Domino children?”

“No he would still have green hair, or those streaks.”

“A major? Of all the Generals and Colonels available she chooses a Major?”

“I've had my son courting the crown for years and I lose to some random nobody?!”

Jack kept a straight face, one foot in front of the other with his golden eyes focused on the white-haired woman who held a fourth of the civilized world in her palm.

Well, her mechanical palm.

Finally Jack stood across from his bride, Selfia dressed in a blue uniform, her long white hair tied up in a bun with a pin in the shape of a rose in it.

The duo stood beneath a white arch, flanked by women with green hair and ceremonial gold armor as a priestess in black vestments stood between the two.

Suddenly silence. The quartet’s music ceasing with not a single sound made in the wedding chamber.

“Dearly beloved,” The red-eyed priestess began, reading from her book. “We come today-”

Jack tuned the woman out, focusing instead on the figure in front of him in dress blues, her military uniform covering up her mechanical arms. His spouse, the current Queen of the Arthurian Empire.

Selfia Cordelica.

Jack did his best not to look at the crowd, instead maintaining a seemingly loving smile with the beautiful woman who smiled back at him.

It was all a show. A farce. Neither party really intimate with each other but rather using one another to achieve their own means.

For Selfia, Jack’s legacy, hoping to garner the support of the Progressives who had remained neutral and to unite the nomads scattered across the imperium.

For Jack, well… Selfia’s resources and army to search for his sister and protect his daughter.

Despite being surrounded by people related to him, they were nothing but strangers to Jack who had grown up an orphan under a rocky black sky.

Suddenly Selfia took Jack’s hands, her mechanical fingers felt beneath her white gloves.

It was time.

“-do you take this man to be your husband, to live together in matrimony, to love him, to honor him, to comfort him, and to keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?" The priestess asked Selfia. “And if you so do, then, proclaim your lineages and state your affirmations under this sacred union.”

Selfia grinned, not a soft smile, but an actual grin that belied her true nature.

“I, Selfia Cordelica, daughter of the Red Empress and The Knight of One Lancelot, Queen of the Imperium and heir to the Cordelica bloodline, take you as my husband.”

The priestess turned to Jack, repeating the question to him.

Jack blinked, doing his best not to hesitate under the limelight of a hundred glares.

It wasn’t that the concept of marriage was scary, nor was it the fact that he would crowned King Consort, no, what made his heart beat rapidly was that with his next words he would be setting into motion a set of events he couldn't take back.

“You got this Jack!” Sahaqiel said, offering Jack support by way of materializing as a cheerleader with his name on her shirt. Of course no one else could see her unless she wanted them to, and thankfully so as it made Jack’s smile appear much more genuine.

“I… Jack Knight, son of the Blood Rose and the Burning Devil, heir to the house of Bell do,” Jack recited, sealing his fate.

At Jack’s words, a tense stillness hung in the air, even the priestess stood jaw agape as Jack revealed his identity to every nobleperson under Selfia’s banner.

“WHAT?!” a woman in the crowd shouted, followed by an elderly noble passing out.

Selfia smirked, her Bell Guards turning to face the crowd in an uproar.

“Let's have some fun shall we Jack?” Selfia giggled before pulling Jack into an embrace and sealing their marriage with a kiss.